The Women of the Year Podcast - Celebrating extraordinary women

Fahma is one of our youngest-ever award winners. She was just 17 when she was given the Young Campaigner of the Year Award in 2014 in recognition of her remarkable efforts to highlight and ban the practice of female genital mutilation (FGM). A petition she started as a schoolgirl collected over 240,000 signatures and was supported by Nobel prize winner Malala Yousefzai and then UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-Moon. Her campaign resulted in compulsory training for public sector works so they could identify and help girls at risk. Ten years on, Fahma, who remains as dedicated to tackling gender and racial inequality reflects on the roots of her activism - which started when she was only 13 - and how it was nurtured by a very special teacher and talks about the reactions of her Somali community to her efforts, what she wished she had realised about the career opportunities that were open to her and why being the eldest of 10 children is so important to her. 

Life for someone with disabilities is challenging wherever you live, but even more so if that’s in the developing world. As our 2010 Window on the World award winner discovered when she was living and working in Tanzania. Seeing people with disabilities begging on the streets, Susie put her degree in textiles to use and set up a social enterprise to provide crafts training and employment for people with disabilities. Starting with three deaf trainees and budget of just £400, by the time Susie left Tanzania ten years later, her centre, which included training facilities and an award-winning cafe, was working with over 120 people with a huge range of disabilities. Returning to the UK wasn’t the end of Susie’s efforts to create opportunities for people with disabilities. Very far from it. Her work now reaches communities here and not just in Tanzania but in Equador and Peru too.In this episode Susie reveals the reason why she is able to specially connect with the people she works with, how she met the challenge of being a young white woman trying to bring about change in an African country, who the childhood heroine of hers was who nominated her for her award and the surprising skill that brings her so much joy. 

Many of our award winners say that it felt like a dream being a winner. None, though, have been chosen to be the recipient because of a dream! But that’s how Nina, the winner of the Women of the Year 2008 Outstanding Achievement Award says she came up with the idea of launching the first Moonwalk, a night time marathon walk through the streets of London to raise money for Breakthrough Breast Cancer where all the participants wore their, often highly decorated, bras very much on showSince then the Moonnwalks have happened annually, not just in London but in other places around the UK and the world, Walk the Walk, the charity Nina founded has raised over £143 million to support work done for and with breast cancer patients and research into the disease, and Nina has been awarded a CBE. Nina recalls the shocking co-incidence that happened after her first fund-raising walk, how her work has been behind a fundamental shift in cancer care, and the reason why her experience of the Women of the Year lunch was unique.  

Since winning the Women of the Year, Window on the World Award in 2007 in recognition of her unwavering campaigning for the rights of victims of forced marriage, domestic violence and honour killings, Jasvinder has been awarded a CBE and was made a Dame in the King’s Birthday Honours list this year. It’s all a far cry from her strict upbringing and arranged marriage to a stranger in India which she was informed about at the age of 14. Running away from home, she lost everything she’d ever known and faced many challenges as well as heartbreaking tragedy, all of which only cemented her determination to help others facing the same injustices and cruelty. Jasvinder describes what life was like growing up in her fiercely traditional Indian family and the traumatic, and still deeply felt, ramifications of choosing to run away rather than face a forced marriage like her sisters. She shares the roots of her campaigning work and reveals how long it took for her message and mission to gain any traction, and why she had to check under her car every morning before doing the school run with her children. 

Working as a young nurse in a remote feeding station in famine-torn Ethiopia, and facing the impossible daily decision of which of the thousands of starving children to save, Claire, the winner of the 2005 Women of the Year Window on the World Award, never imagined the impact the interview she gave to BBC reporter Michael Buerk would have. Becoming the trigger for the iconic Band Aid single Feed the World and the Live Aid concert that followed it, may have radically improved the appalling suffering of the Ethiopians Claire was caring for, but it had less welcome ramifications for the young nurse when she returned to the UK. Claire, who was made a Dame in 2010 for services to nursing and international humanitarian aid, talks about memories of her time in Ethiopia and why she couldn’t wait to get rid of “the annoying bloke from the BBC”; what she did afterwards to process her experiences in the country; why she returned there 20 years later and reveals how receiving our 2005 Window on the World Award prompted her to reflect on her work and how others perceived it.

To mark the 70th anniversary of Women of the Year, in this series we’re talking to some of the extraordinary ordinary women whose exceptional achievements, courage and legacy (or, indeed, all three) have been recognised with special awards at the event over the decades. They talk about why they were chosen as award winners, recall their memories of the day and share what’s happened in their lives since then. Our first guest is also one of our earliest award winners. Pam Warren became known as The Woman in the Mask when, as the worst affected victim of the catastrophic Paddington train crash exactly 25 years ago, she had to wear a plastic mask to protect her badly burnt face as it slowly healed. In spite of the huge challenges she faced in recovering physically and mentally from her appalling injuries, Pam became an outspoken campaigner for improved passenger safety and we presented her with our Women of the Year Award in 2001 in recognition of her remarkable bravery and determination. Pam talks about learning to live with PTSD, how the crash changed her life for the better, why it’s important she doesn’t get bored, and the famous reporter she met at the lunch and how they became friends. 

Saying that this episode's guest holds the Guinness World Record for the fastest marathon run dressed as a nut, doesn’t even begin to do justice to the absurd number of ridiculously difficult physical challenges that former Major in the Royal Army Medical Core, Sally Orange, has undertaken in her on-going quest to raise awareness of mental health issues. This is a woman who has run the hardest land race in the world, the brutal Marathon de Sables, and the Siberian Ice Race in Russia. Who has skied 250km across the Artic Circle, and done the Arch to Arc triathlon - running from Marble Arch, swimming across the Channel, then cycling to the Arc de Triumph in Paris. Who has led the first ever all female wounded, injured and sick team to complete the word’s most challenging cycling event, the Race Across America, and is the only woman to have run seven marathons in seven continents in seven days.Awarded an MBE in the King’s first Birthday Honours list this year for services to charity and mental health, Sally talks with powerful honesty about her own struggles with severe mental health problems and how her experiences, and her desire to help anybody else going through anything similar, have been the driving force behind all the astonishingly difficult challenges she has done and continues to do. Learn more about Sally heresallyorange.comAnd find her on Instagram at sallyorangembeand LinkedIn at Sally Orange MBEWritten and Presented by Diane KenwoodProduced by Clare LynchThis Podcast is brought to you in partnership with Coca-Cola Europacific Partners.

Our guest today is Hasina Rahman, a young woman whose unwavering determination and courage led her to embark on a transformative martial arts journey starting when she was a teenager. Her story is a testament to the power of self-belief, resilience, and passion.Hasina founded Pink Diamond Martial Arts in 2015 in Luton. The idea had come to her while she was at home looking after her four-month-old baby and toddler. Being a fully certified personal trainer with expertise in three different martial arts disciplines, including karate, kick-boxing, and Muay Thai, she aspired to create a business that merged her passion for martial arts whilst also empowering women and girls to rediscover themselves physically and mentally. This led to her brainchild of establishing an exclusive women's combat club, and Pink Diamond Martial Arts opened its doors offering instruction in Muay Thai, mixed martial arts, and self-defense. Hasina serves as the head instructor at Pink Diamond Martial Arts, where she conducts  classes and manages day-to-day operations. Pink Diamond Martial Arts also runs self-defence workshops around the UK, teaching women life-saving techniques. Remarkably, she has also authored a children's book titled "Heroes: A Guide to Anti-Bullying."To find out more about Pink Diamond go to: Pink_Diamond_ (martial-arts.org.uk)Written and Presented by Jo BaringProduce by Clare LynchThis Podcast is brought to you in partnership with Coca-Cola Europacific Partners.

If you’ve ever considered making a career pivot, we can pretty much guarantee it wouldn’t be quite as life-changing as the one made by our guest on this episode of the Extraordinary Ordinary. When she decided to sign up for a fishing trip off the coast of Norfolk in 2012, Ashley Mullenger could never have imagined she would fall in love with being out at sea and fishing and that that growing passion would eventually lead to her leaving her office job in logistics management to become a full time fisherman. Or that in 2022 she would become the first woman ever to win Under 10-metre (that’s a reference to the size of boat she fishes from) Fisherman of the Year. Ashley describes what daily life is like fishing from the tidal harbour in Norfolk where she lives, the challenges of getting their catch to market and the complicated intricacies of the fishing industry and how they impact small fishing enterprises like hers.To find discover more follow Ashley on Instagram at thefemalefishermanWritten and Presented by Diane KenwoodProduced by Clare LynchThis Podcast is brought to you in partnership with Coca-Cola Europacific Partners.

A 30 year career as an NHS nurse didn’t help Jo Tosh to piece together the strange symptoms she started to experience as being the first signs that she was suffering with Parkinsons Disease. But them why would she, she was only in her mid forties and Parkinson’s is an old persons disease isn’t it? It was one of the many lessons Jo has learnt in the eight years since her diagnosis, and one of the reasons she has become a determined advocate for other Parkinsons sufferers and campaigner for better recognition of the disease and more to be done to find new treatments and, hopefully, eventually a cure. Jo talks about the way Parkinson's has affected her, how she's learnt to live with the potentially crushing uncertainty of its progression and find not just joy and purpose but something altogether unexpected as well. To learn more about Jo's Parkinsons journey and campaign follow her on Instagram at ladyduffgordon  Written and Presented by Diane KenwoodProduced by Clare LynchThis Podcast is brought to you in partnership with Coca-Cola Europacific Partners.